There was a sharp difference between Sean Lemass and his immediate predecessor as taoiseach, Eamon de Valera, regarding policy of membership of international organisations, Press Ombudsman and former TD and senator Prof John Horgan said today.
"Despite his early role in the League of Nations, de Valera’s policy attention span seemed to be almost entirely devoted to relations with Britain, not least over partition," he said at a seminar for former Oireachtas members held in the Dáil chamber today.
Speaking on the theme of Ireland and Europe – 50 years-A-Growing, he said that in his final phase as taoiseach, de Valera had made only one foreign policy initiative, so far as he could ascertain,
That was in 1958, when he made an unpublicised visit to London, in the company of foreign minister Frank Aiken, to propose to the British government that Northern Ireland should surrender its direct allegiance to the Queen in return for a united Ireland within the Commonwealth.
"This proposal was doomed to failure," Prof Horgan added.
He said Lemass’s view on international organisations, while rarely expressed on policy initiatives until after he became taoiseach, were demonstrably different.
"As early as 1944, with war still on, he was telling a Dublin audience that a determination to defend independence was not to be confused with a policy of isolationism," he added.
Former editor of The Irish Times and TD Geraldine Kennedy said the late Justin Keating, a former Labour minister, had admitted to her some years ago that he had been wrong to oppose membership of the then EEC in 1972.
"And is it in the national interest now?" she added. "The answer must still be an overwhelming Yes as the world contracts all around us."
